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Pack goats

I am looking at purchasing a few pack goats and would like to know what breeds you other goat packers think are best. With the online research I have done I am favoring togg's, kiko's, oberhaslis and finally alpines. I would like to know if you all think its better to buy a trained goat or go through the bottle feeding process....I am leaning towards trained due to being able to hunt this coming year but would like to hear your thoughts! I would like to hear anyones thoughts on any part of packing with goats.....poitive or negative. I know Montana packs with goats and I would like to know your thoughts most as you are the only one that I know that's uses goats for sure! Thanks for your time and thoughts.

From what I've read, and from speaking with goat packers, you should raise your own wethers from kids, because the whole point of packing goats is they will follow you wherever you go. They are like dogs that way, and they will always stay with you and the lead goat. The right breed can take around 50 pounds apiece. I have a buddy with a string of pack goats, they are all like his little buddies.
I have long entertained the thought of doing it for several reasons:

1. You do not have to pack in food for them
2. They can go places that are hard for horses to get
3. You can simply stake them out at night, they are relatively low maintenance

From what I've read, and from speaking with goat packers, you should raise your own wethers from kids, because the whole point of packing goats is they will follow you wherever you go. They are like dogs that way, and they will always stay with you and the lead goat. The right breed can take around 50 pounds apiece. I have a buddy with a string of pack goats, they are all like his little buddies.
I have long entertained the thought of doing it for several reasons:

1. You do not have to pack in food for them
2. They can go places that are hard for horses to get
3. You can simply stake them out at night, they are relatively low maintenance

+1 bottlefeed them as kids and they are much worse than dogs. They follow you everywhere and jump all over you like a play pen. I would suggest females due to the stench of males. Not sure if castration of goats is a normality but that would probably cut the stench down also. That was my first taste of entrepreneurship. Bought a male and a female when I was about 11-12 years old. And would sell the offspring to the mexicans around town for 150.00 a piece. Another benefit is if you end up stuck and in a bad spot you've always got food

Most packers as far as I know, use castrated males for that reason, plus they get superior size and muscle if castrated, but are less beligerant

Best of Luck,
Jeff

We would do that on cattle, pigs and horses. There is a fine line of proper time as to when cutting/ banding should take place. After superior size growth and muscle growth. But before the dominant dic$(;ad stage.

I am thinking i will start bottle feeding but am thinking of getting 2 or 3 trained to start with so I can hunt this year and then start the bottle feeding process once I have all the items to start the heard from bottle feeding. I will only use withers as all the research suggest this. I did not find much on how a mixed heard would be (trained & bottle feed) but that is my current plan. I was hoping the forum could do better then this but I guess we just don't have many goat packers here. If anyone has any experience good or bad with goats please share any info, thanks, again

+1 bottlefeed them as kids and they are much worse than dogs. They follow you everywhere and jump all over you like a play pen. I would suggest females due to the stench of males. Not sure if castration of goats is a normality but that would probably cut the stench down also. That was my first taste of entrepreneurship. Bought a male and a female when I was about 11-12 years old. And would sell the offspring to the mexicans around town for 150.00 a piece. Another benefit is if you end up stuck and in a bad spot you've always got food